OK. I know nothing about matte painting...but wouldn't it have been good to fix the photo first, ie straighten the house up, it is leaning to the left and it annoys me. Other than that it looks fantastic

While I'm here...could someone explain matte painting to me in 25 words or less

WOW ., excelellent . really believable..
the only thing i would have to crit is the fact the rear window of the car as a bit too much contrast between ''snowy and not snowy''
out of that its realy great..
element

Powerlines have a tendency to sag under the weight from snow -- not severly, but a perceptible amount of drop -- you may want to consider adding a small dip onto the powerlines =)

Some touchup on the Jeep's windows might be nice -- especially the back window -- the wiper pattern doesn't look right -- besides, snow tends to fall off when brushed like that -- it coheres more strongly to itself than to the window.

that's very strange. When you look at the zoomed in image you see how it looks handmade and unreal. But when you look at the whole image it's very believable and realistic. Reminds me of the impressionists.
Great work on the lightning. Cheers!

I once watched an interview with a famous "old school" matte painter... used paint and glass and all that good stuff.

He said the most important thing to making it look real was not to make lots of detail, but to make lots of noise and imperfection in color.

He mentioned the same as you, m@., that if you were to look at it up close ith looks like random smudges of unrelated colors but you reach a perfect distance and it magically takes to real life.

This matte is evidence of that... using new tools, but old methods... great job!

Question though.. the pictures have a video-like look to them like they are shot from a still digital camera... is the project going to be shot in film or video? Film definately has its own subtle, subliminal feel to it.

That's some great work you have there. I have only one more crit to add to the mix of the ones that have already been mentioned. In the original picture there are some bushes on the right side of the image. If you look closely at the final picture you will notice that you forgot to paint over the bushes on the right rear of the house.

__________________"I have always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific."

You guys didn't notice the green bushes that weren't erased on the far right end of the house?
It seems like he cropped them off the following wall to the left, but he forgot to erase them off the wall behind it, to our right hand side.
You can look at the reference photo and see which bushes they are.
The vehicle really stands out, especially for us Canadians that know what a parked car looks like in the snow. I can see that it's rally hard to paint snow on a photo, you don't just slit the photo with thin traces of white, it looks too pure. Snow gets dirty, especially with a totaly clean road like that, which means that the snow that was on the road had to go somewhere, and that dirty snow isn't white anymore, it's partly brown.

I think you should work a lot on the vehicle, the perfectly swiped back window calls attention. The trees look cloned, but I don;t think anyone cares about that, it's the snow that could become a problem for believability.

I also saw your previous matte, snow on a palm tree? It must be for a fiction theme.

But you know what, even though there are a few more flaws I noticed after 30 seconds of observation, I should say that I thought to myself this... if somebody quickly showed me this altered photo, would those details call my attention and wonder if it's actually real? I think not, I may have even overlooked the vehicle mistakes. At first glance, it totally feels like winter man!

Great matte... The few things I have noticed have already been mentioned I believe... the reflection of the tall hedge to our right in the photo still remains in the matte version, even though the hedge itself has been removed. This wouldn't have drawn my attention as much as it did if it were also "winterized", but the hedge is still bright and green in the window.

The flowering plants, both on the porch and outside the second story window were also distracting.

Garden hoses are rarely left out in winter.

And lastly the car, hopefully my fellow Canadian will send the reference pic's which were promissed.

Still a great job, and perhaps my anal critique is motivated more by envy than criticism.

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